Development of a Wind Turbine Systems Dynamics Model Using the Automatic Dynamic Analysis of Mechanical Systems (ADAMS) Software, Part II: Results

The Wind Energy Program at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has been evaluating the use of a commercial general-purpose simulation code called Automatic Dynamic Analysis of Mechanical Systems (ADAMS) to simulate and help design wind turbines. As part of this evaluation, NREL has modeled the three-bladed turbine used for its Unsteady Aero Experiment. Test engineers at NREL have extensively tested it over the past few years. By comparing this model to data taken from an existing turbine, NREL engineers hope to show the wind energy industry that modeling can play an important role in the development of new wind turbines. We documented the first part of the study in a paper presented at the WindPower '92 conference of the American Wind Energy Association. It is titled `Development of a Wind Turbine Systems Dynamics Model Using the Automatic Dynamic Analysis of Mechanical Systems (ADAMS) Software.' It dwelt mostly on a description of ADAMS and its advantages and disadvantages. It presented only a few preliminary results. This paper will show results of more simulations of the three-bladed, Unsteady Aero turbine using the ADAMS code. It will include statistical comparisons of field test data loads to simulated loads. We used one-dimensional turbulence data taken from an anemometer array and simulated three-dimensional turbulence as input to the simulations.